Curran: Haunted by those left behind

A man holds a child as they stand behind police tape at the perimeter a few blocks outside the explosion site in Lac-Mégantic, 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke on Sunday, July 7, 2013. A portion of a train carrying crude oil separated, derailed and exploded in the town of Lac-Mégantic on Saturday.

Photograph by: Dario Ayala
, The Gazette

This story was published July 7, 2013.

LAC-MÉGANTIC — They are haunted by the friends they couldn’t save, by the memory of people who are missing and might never be found.

Two days after the worst night in the history of this pretty lakeside community 216 kilometres east of Montreal, shock and grief have begun to morph into anger at the bizarre and still unexplained rail accident that vaporized much of the downtown core.

At least five people are dead and scores more missing after an unmanned freight train owned by the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway hauling crude oil uncoupled and skidded off the tracks, setting off scores of explosions and sending late night partiers and residents running for their lives.

Many of those caught in the firestorm — exactly how many still isn’t known — weren’t so lucky. Police said roughly 40 people have been reported missing, but admitted that number could easily climb or fall once investigators have a chance to speak with relatives of the missing and take a closer look at the smouldering ruins.

“It’s a catastrophe,” said Health Minister Réjean Hébert, noting that only three or four people were treated for smoke inhalation and minor injuries before being released from hospital. “It’s a black and white situation.” People either got away, or they didn’t. There was no in-between.

The row of shops, cafés and bistros on lower Laval St. sloping down toward Parc des Vétérans and the lakefront are gone. So is the notary’s office, a hairdressing salon, the library and the Anglican church, the old fire hall. So is one of the town’s two funeral homes.

Meanwhile, some of that oil spilled into Lac Méganic, casting a bright yellow sheen as it flowed down a small waterfall into the Chaudière River. On Sunday, Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche said the water supply was not at risk but advised residents to continue to boil water for five minutes before drinking it as a precautionary measure.

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Premier Pauline Marois, New Democratic Party Leader Thomas Mulcair took turns visiting the town to offer condolences and call for a thorough investigation, people from Lac-Mégantic and surrounding villages offered their own kind of support, arriving at the high school with car trunks brimming with goodwill in the form of food, diapers, toys for toddlers and even winter parkas.

But survivors of the derailment were in no mood for political rhetoric.

The first thing you notice about the people huddled on the grass outside the high school — which now serves as a makeshift shelter for people who have lost their homes — or standing in line awaiting permission to go home to get fresh clothes or pick up a beloved pet is their sad eyes and glazed expressions.

At the Mazda dealership across the street, a growing line of frail, weary looking people hug the wall as two Sûreté du Québec officers strike a fine line between kindness and exasperation.

“Medication on the left, animals on the right,” Constable M.P. Paquette tells them for the third time. “Please, be patient.” Wait your turn, and Paquette promises, someone will be along to help them return to their homes to get essential prescriptions or rescue the pets they left behind.

Provided their home is still there.

Just below the surface, there’s frustration, anxiety and rage at the events that transformed their community in a matter of minutes on a beautiful summer night.

It was just after 1 a.m., the end of a sultry Friday in July. Most people had turned in for the night, but there were still scores of people on the terrasses of the three restaurants and bars on the part of main street that slopes down to Parc des Véterans and the waterfront.

At the Musi-Café on Laval St., Gilles Fluet figured it was time to push off. He estimates there were still about 40 people inside when he waved goodbye to his pals. Three minutes later, he had just had time to cross the train tracks when he saw and heard the oncoming train as it careered off the tracks, which run behind the café and adjoining buildings.

“We ran when we saw it was the oil cars,” Fluet said of the chaotic scramble to get away as the wagons sliced through electrical lines and the oil cars flipped on their side, spraying the buildings nearby.

“Anyone who was in that area who was inside the building had very little chance to get out,” said Fluet, who knew pretty much everyone in the bar that night. Now he talks about them in the past tense.

“There was no way they could get out.”

Bernard Thiberge normally works as a cook at the Musi-Café, a popular nightspot where people gather to listen to live bands or sit on the outdoor terrasse.

But he’s been recovering from an accident. So early Saturday morning, Thiberge, 44, was just hanging out, enjoying the sound of a regular duo when the runaway train tore through the heart of this pretty community on the shore of Lac Mégantic, vaporizing everything in its wake.

“We heard a big noise and we see the train come very fast,” Thiberge said. He remembers how the ground was vibrating, how he’d never imagined a train coming through town so fast.

“When it fell over, there were these big explosions. Everyone on the terrace was running to escape. There was a big wall of fire on each side of the street.”

Thiberge, who lives a few kilometres outside of town, suffered second-degree burns on his right arm as he paused while reaching for his bicycle.

“I stayed there a few seconds because I knew people inside and I could do nothing because it was too hot. We could not return inside to save them.

“It was happening very fast, maybe 15, 20 seconds.”

Thiberge thinks there may have been as many as 60 or 70 people inside the bar, with only those close to the doors standing any chance of getting out.

“It is difficult to remember that. We just have to understand that some people are dead, so many people, we don’t have an answer.”

Thiberge said he was used to the train tracks being there and never really worried about the fact that trains carrying toxic materials routinely travelled through the centre of town.

Carole Cyr, who moved to neighbouring Nantes from Longueuil last year, said she was always troubled by the length of the trains that passed through the centre of Lac-Méganic. And the kind of cargo they carried. “I couldn’t believe it didn’t bother people.”

Cyr said she was just drifting off to sleep around 11:30 on Friday night when she heard sirens from fire engines, but she didn’t get up to see what was happening. She said it wasn’t until the following morning, when she received a phone call from her sister in Montreal asking if she was all right that she learned about the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic — and an earlier fire involving the same train a few hundred yards away from her house in Nantes.

The cause of that fire — and the fact that the train’s engineer had left the train on the track unmanned at the end of his shift — are just two of the mysteries yet to be answered.

In an interview with The Gazette Sunday night, Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway executive Yves Bourdon said the employee had in fact returned to the train as firefighters were putting out the fire, which was possibly caused by a ruptured diesel fuel line. He could not say what verifications were done after the fire was out.

In a statement issued earlier last night, the MMA said the locomotive of the oil train appears to have been shut down after the engineer on duty from Farnham to Nantes left the train and that this “may have resulted in the release of air brakes on the locomotive that was holding the train in place.” It’s unclear, however, how this could have happened.

Cyr said she can’t help wonder whether vandals — such as the graffiti taggers so often out late at night putting their mark on the railway cars — might have tampered with the train or at least have seen something that could help explain how the derailment occurred.

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A man holds a child as they stand behind police tape at the perimeter a few blocks outside the explosion site in Lac-Mégantic, 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke on Sunday, July 7, 2013. A portion of a train carrying crude oil separated, derailed and exploded in the town of Lac-Mégantic on Saturday.

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